Everyday devices becoming smarter and more efficient, says ARM

And the British company is reaping the benefits

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The Samsung Galaxy S4 octa-core uses big.LITTLE tech

Your mobile devices may well soon be capable of dealing with beautiful games as well as getting your battery to last a full day, with chip giant ARM announcing that companies are racing to license its big.LITTLE technology.

Announcing a strong quarter of revenue and 2.6 billion ARM-based chips shipped in the period, British company ARM revealed that take-up of big.LITTLE has grown, with another three companies signing up to use the system.

The somewhat awkwardly named big.LITTLE pairs a powerful processor with a much smaller one, allowing your device to do intensive processes like gaming using one, but drop down to using the less-power hungry processor when it's doing simpler tasks.

Prevalent

That conserves battery without sacrificing performance and ARM's financial results suggest we are going to be seeing a lot more of this kind of technology.

Indeed, those lucky enough to be getting their mitts on the octa-core version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be able to get your own glimpse at the big.LITTLE tech; but not in the quad-core version.

"Everyday devices are becoming smarter, more connected and more energy efficient, which is increasing the applicability of and demand for ARM's technology," said outgoing CEO Warren East.

With revenue and profit up compared to last year, ARM is certainly reaping the benefits of its low-power heritage in this so-called post PC era, and TechRadar will be catching up with East to find out more.